You need to hear this.

Hackers demand $2.5M from local Texas governments

After news broke that nearly two dozen local Texas governments were hit by ransomware this week, another tidbit of information has emerged. The hackers are asking for a grand total of $2.5 million to unlock all of the affected machines. Additionally, the same group was responsible for all of the attacks..

According to BleepingComputer:

“The City of Borger issued a statement saying that the incident impacted its financial operations and services. The city cannot accept utility or other payments and Vital Statistics services (birth and death certificates) are offline. Keene is another city affected by this ransomware attack. This administration, too, cannot process card payments or utility disconnections. Keen Mayor Gary Heinrich said that the threat actor demanded $2.5 million in exchange for the key that decrypts the locked files.”

If you're wondering how so many towns got hit with ransomware at the same time, there are also answers for that important question as well. All of the cities affected shared the managed service provider (MSP), which was probably the starting point of this ransomware attack.

Apparently, at least some of the affected towns are making progress. According to the article, "More than 25% of the victims have moved from the response and assessment stage to remediation and recovery."

Oracle is taking these measures because they don’t want CryptoOracle to take advantage of the street cred they established over decades in the tech industry. Also, CryptoOracle didn’t change their name after Oracle asked the first time around.

But there's more going on in the world than that.

Instagram hoax fools the famous and their followers

They say a sucker is born every minute. Celebrities aren't immune to this phenomenon. If you've noticed a viral warning message spreading through Instagram, you are not alone. Many famous people have been posting a block of text to their Instagram feeds that proves they don't read the fine print.

This false memo says Instagram will soon have ownership of all content on the platform, including deleted photos ... but it's just a big fat hoax.

According to The Verge:

“The legal citations in the hoax also don’t make a lot of sense: the UCC is the Uniform Commercial Code, which forms the basis of state-level contract law and generally doesn’t apply to copyright issues, and there’s no such thing as UCC 1-308-11308. The closest thing, UCC 1-308, is in the definitions section and doesn’t have any penalties, and it’s mostly about reserving the right to sue even if you accept defective goods. The Rome Statute established the International Criminal Court in 1998, and, well, the ICC doesn’t really care about your Instagram.”

Usher, Julia Roberts, Rick Perry, Rob Lowe, and probably a few of your friends have posted the fake memo to their accounts. But because you've read this, you're not going to fall for the hype, are you?

And you can't not know this.

Who's the best soccer / football player? A supercomputer settles the debate once and for all?

If you're a soccer / non-handegg-football fan, you know there are heated arguments over which player is the greatest of all time (GOAT). And usually, the debate centers around two names: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. A group of scientists now claim that with the help of a supercomputer, they've come up with a definitive answer. But which player came out on top?

According to GiveMeSport:

“Per Sporza in Belgium, professors at KU Leuven university have teamed up with Dutch data experts SciSports to come up with something called Valuing Actions by Estimating Probabilities (VAEP), which can apparently settle the Messi vs Ronaldo debate.

The formula considers the players’ all-round games and also takes into account their contributions on the pitch in both attacking and defensive roles.”

Messi earned a score of 1.21 per game. Meanwhile, Ronaldo scored a mere 0.61, meaning the diminutive Argentine is the clear winner according to the data. So should the world trust this computer-assisted decision, or does this call warrant further review?

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

Does anyone know if the same MSP was also used by the Florida cities that were hit? I would hope that the IT professionals elsewhere would listen and pay attention, and get their stuff locked down, or at the very least, backed up!

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

Haven't heard much in the news about the Texas ransomware attack besides what I've seen here. And I live in Texas.

What's really scary about this is a scope of the attack. All those entities hit simultaneously. This could be a big payday for these bums. Although I doubt these small towns will be able to pay without insurance, state or federal help.

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

Yea, "Oracle - 'cause you know, Java and shit."

Technically, SunMicrosystems named Java. Originally it was called Oak.

The thing about AI right now, is that it is programmed with bias. Until the day AI can be made without it, results from it will always have a lean in someones direction. However, by that point, we have skynet lol.

Haven't heard much in the news about the Texas ransomware attack besides what I've seen here. And I live in Texas.

What's really scary about this is a scope of the attack. All those entities hit simultaneously. This could be a big payday for these bums. Although I doubt these small towns will be able to pay without insurance, state or federal help.

salsamanp​ my city was hit and the website is still down in part. No payments being made, as well as any forms (like Code enforcement forms) are working either. I just wish government would get smarter, especially when it comes to cyber security.

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

Trademark law can be weird sometimes, but if Oracle is well known for software, such as database systems, etc., it could be easy for someone to think that CryptoOracle was related to, or sponsored by, the company that sells database and other software. If so, it would likely meet the trademark test for "likelihood of confusion," and Oracle could stop their use.

Oracle has been around long enough, and is well known enough, that the fact that there are other uses for the word Oracle probably won't matter. You would not expect them to be able to use CryptoMicrosoft or CryptoAdobe either.

If the products and services are different enough, though, they can use the same name. For example, for a number of years, Toyota was blocked from using the Lexus brand name for cars due to litigation by the company that provides Lexis on-line legal searching services. Eventually, the courts decided that the products and services were too different and people were unlikely to confuse the two companies. But I could see blockchain products and services being close enough to the array of products provided by Oracle to cause a problem.

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

Trademark law can be weird sometimes, but if Oracle is well known for software, such as database systems, etc., it could be easy for someone to think that CryptoOracle was related to, or sponsored by, the company that sells database and other software. If so, it would likely meet the trademark test for "likelihood of confusion," and Oracle could stop their use.

Oracle has been around long enough, and is well known enough, that the fact that there are other uses for the word Oracle probably won't matter. You would not expect them to be able to use CryptoMicrosoft or CryptoAdobe either.

If the products and services are different enough, though, they can use the same name. For example, for a number of years, Toyota was blocked from using the Lexus brand name for cars due to litigation by the company that provides Lexis on-line legal searching services. Eventually, the courts decided that the products and services were too different and people were unlikely to confuse the two companies. But I could see blockchain products and services being close enough to the array of products provided by Oracle to cause a problem.

Having the name "Oracle" and thinking about the actual company Oracle would turn me away from any product lol.

salsamanp​ my city was hit and the website is still down in part. No payments being made, as well as any forms (like Code enforcement forms) are working either. I just wish government would get smarter, especially when it comes to cyber security.

Yeah, I worked in Austin for a while. We dealt with a lot of county government entities I hope they made it okay. Sounds like this attack is more on the local city government level. The fact that they were using the same MSP to me says they were trying to save money. But at the same time all that consolidation made them an irresistible target.

Apparently, at least some of the affected towns are making progress. According to the article, "More than 25% of the victims have moved from the response and assessment stage to remediation and recovery."

Response: Oh!Assessment: Crap!Remediation: You're fired!Recovery: Get me a new MSP!

Im surprised MSPs don't offer like an anti-ransomware package where like offline backups are made either daily , weekly, or monthly and then stored in a firesafe vault. Then if if they get with ransomware, you can be like " Oh what's that? you got hit by ransomware. Sorry buddy, that's on you". I mean in general not in this particular case where they were probably the infection vector. Also feel free to steal my idea if you're MSP, something like that practically sells itself with all the new media coverage

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

Oracle doesn't get to claim sole right of use of a job title that dates back thousands of years. It'd be like someone trying to copyright the term soldier, or wheel. Good luck with that court case. I'd say CryptoOracle is a great name for an investing firm and makes far more sense than Oracle using the name Oracle...

I have to say, I really am not surprised all of these city governments are getting hit by ransomware. Not only do they probably not have a really robust IT budget, but they most likely are working with out of date systems and not the greatest solutions when it comes to redundancy or protection against modern threats. This should be a lesson to penny pinching cities and businesses....nothing good comes from skimping on the IT Sec Budget.